How many times can you get to the edge of giving up?

The ultrasound this morning went terribly. My lining was only up to 3mm. I can't remember a single cycle where it was that thin 14 days after my period. I have no idea what the hell is happening to my body anymore, but I'm just not responding to the oral Estrace right now. They would expect to see my lining around 7.5mm or so right now and I'm not even half of that. Not even half. I feel so hopeless and lost. I'm starting to lose faith that this is ever going to work for us. It seems like every time I get the faintest sense of hope and healing, it comes crashing down. My body is just betraying me at every turn.

For the first time ever I really felt like I should simply give up. I don't want to but I don't see a way out of this hell any longer. We've been at this for two years now. And the only thing we've gotten is heartache and bad news. I've let my family down, I've let myself down. I feel like I only have myself to blame at this point. It's my body that's causing all this pain and suffering.

It amazes me every day how fertility-centric this world is. Leaving my house has become an obstacle course of fertility avoidance. The supermarket is the worst minefield imaginable. Today at the checkout line a woman was telling the very young cashier that she would 'regret not having a second child' someday. The cashier said 'Everytime I see a little baby come in here I think I want another one, but I know that's just crazy!" and laughs. I wanted to burst into tears. I wish I knew that my body would work one day and that I would have the option to have another one. But it's looking more and more like that's never going to be.

Why is this so impossibly hard? Why do I have to feel this way every day of my life? Why can't this just go my way for once? I just want a baby. Why is that too much to ask?

FET to be.

I'm finally starting to feel like I'm on the road to healing. It's been a terrible road. Worse than I could have imagined, but I'm starting to feel better about life. It probably helps that I finally got my period and have started my medications again in preparation for the FET. My first ultrasound for this cycle is on March 22 and if all goes well, I could be having the transfer as early as next week. Holy cow. It’s been a long time coming, man.

E is having surgery on Thursday morning. He’s getting his tonsils and adenoids out and tubes put in. I’m so very nervous for him, but I know in my heart it’s what is best for him. He’s been unhealthy for so long and I feel like this could give him a jump start to a healthier life. The fevers have been going on for so long, it makes me worry about what may happen to him later in life. What if all these fevers affect his fertility some day? My heart would break for him if he and his future partner ever have to go through what we’ve gone through to bring him a sibling. It shouldn’t be this hard for a child to be born. It just shouldn’t.

He’s been such an amazing little man the past few weeks. I feel like he’s coming into his own personality and once in a while I’ll just sit and watch him. I wonder how he’s going to take to being a big brother when the time comes. I wonder if I screwed it all up by waiting so long between children. I wonder a lot of things.

I’ve been trying so hard to keep a sunny disposition about all of this. I know it’s going to work again. I have to believe that in my heart because if I don’t, the days seem endless and all hope leaves me. Life will get better. I just have to keep moving, keep reaching for that goal. This baby wants to be born.

Paralyzed

It's been a while since I've posted. The past few weeks have been some of the worst times of my life. After all that joy of finally getting pregnant, the pain of having a loss has been worse than I thought possible. I feel paralyzed by pain and I can't snap out of it. I know this is the normal part of grieving but it doesn't make it any easier to deal with. I got to see my baby when they finally had to remove it from my body by force. Even though it was dead and gone, I still felt so happy to see it. I was glad to see that something was really growing in there, something had been fighting to survive and just couldn't muster the strength to stay with me on this earth. It breaks my heart to think that my body wasn't strong enough to help it along.

I feel broken. More than just infertile-broken. It goes deeper than that. I feel like I want to run away and crawl into a hole. Nothing feels right. I spend my days feeling numb and angry and hurt. I wish I knew what I had done to deserve all of this. It feels like a punishment and I don't know the crime. I hate the bitterness most of all. I think thoughts that are rotten and mean, but the pain that I'm feeling won't go away and that bitterness is the only thing that keeps on coming. R doesn't even know what to say to me anymore and so he ignores it and keeps going on with his day.

As if all of this pain and suffering weren't enough, I've been put on hold by the RE. I think, no, I know that's what's making me feel worse. I can't sit still like this without practically collapsing in grief. The only way I can ignore how I've been feeling for the past 25 months of trying to conceive is to keep moving toward that elusive goal of bringing another baby into this world. Once I stop that forward movement, I die inside. The burden is too great. And now I'm at the mercy of my unreliable body once again. I have no faith in my body anymore and I'm at it's mercy.

I wish I could embrace this break and relax. I wish I could find a way to heal that will help me move on. I just don't know how anymore. It's too raw. Images of fertility, pregnancy, babies and all the things I can't have are constantly around me and the second I think I've gotten skin that's thick enough, it finds a way to ambush me and tear my wall down again. I don't know how to heal except to succeed. And that's feeling further and further away.